Monday, December 17 -- Oscars shortlists announced for nine categories (Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Live-Action Short, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Best Original Song).

JANUARY 2019

Thursday, January 3 -- BAFTA EE Rising Star nominations revealed.

Friday, January 4 -- Producers Guild of America announces nominees for excellence in feature films, television and other categories.

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Already considered a likely Academy Awards contender, "The Favourite" -- a comedy set in the early 18th-century court of Britain's Queen Anne -- has claimed 13 nominations for British Independent Film Awards.

Directed by the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, the picture's nominations include Best British Independent Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director. Olivia Colman, who portrays the queen, received a Best Actress nomination. Her co-stars, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, are nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Weisz also will compete with Colman in the Best Actress race. She is nominated for her performance in "Disobedience," the drama that teamed her with another Rachel -- the Canadian actress Rachel McAdams (a Best Supporting Actress nominee).

The awards will be presented on Sunday, December 2, 2018.

Weisz and Colman in "The Favourite"

McAdams and Weisz in "Disobedience"

The 21st Annual British Independent Film Awards nominations are as follows:

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#RearWindow-ish but definitely its own tight and gritty, desperate crime thing, #NosiphoDumisa's #Number37 is a fine addition to the wave of distinctive new thrillers coming out of South Africa in the last year or two.

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I did not see Larry Clark's 2012 #MarfaGirl, so I can only assume it was about usually naked young people sweating in the Texas heat and not knowing what to do with all their babies, like Clark's new #MarfaGirl2.

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For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will reveal shortlists simultaneously for nine categories. The announcement date will be December 17, 2018 -- a little more than a month before the overall Oscar nominations are unveiled.

The nine categories are:

Best Foreign-Language Film (87 countries were in competition for this award, but the shortlist should feature only nine pictures. When the overall nominations are announced in January, there will be only five finalists).

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For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will reveal shortlists simultaneously for nine categories. The announcement date will be December 17, 2018 -- a little more than a month before the overall Oscar nominations are unveiled.

The nine categories are:

Best Foreign-Language Film (87 countries were in competition for this award, but the shortlist should feature only nine pictures. When the overall nominations are announced in January, there will be only five finalists).

Best Animated Short Film.

Best Documentary Feature.

Best Documentary Short.

Best Live-Action Short.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Best Visual Effects.

Best Original Score.

Best Original Song.

Sorry, still confused. This is before voting begins? That means you're only allowed to vote for the films that have been placed on the shortlist in these categories? Does that mean the Academy (or some committee within it) gets to pick ahead of time which films members are allowed to vote on in these categories?

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Sorry, still confused. This is before voting begins? That means you're only allowed to vote for the films that have been placed on the shortlist in these categories? Does that mean the Academy (or some committee within it) gets to pick ahead of time which films members are allowed to vote on in these categories?

You're on the right track. Let's use the Best Foreign-Language Film category as an example.

Based on rules changes that went into effect last year, the Academy has a foreign-language committee comprised of people from all 17 branches of the voting pool. Committee members vote for six films; an executive committee selected by the foreign-language committee chairperson decides the other three. The nine films on the shortlist are then screened by Academy foreign-language voters. The final five pictures are revealed with the other Oscar nominations in January.

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I'd like to think that all of the pretentious blather in #TheOtherSideoftheWind is #OrsonWelles skewering his own generation of #Hollywood denizens as much as the (very nice) softcore film within the film satirizes the younger art crowd. Hope I'm right.

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Already considered a likely Academy Awards contender, "The Favourite" -- a comedy set in the early 18th-century court of Britain's Queen Anne -- has claimed 13 nominations for British Independent Film Awards.

Directed by the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, the picture's nominations include Best British Independent Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director. Olivia Colman, who portrays the queen, received a Best Actress nomination. Her co-stars, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, are nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category.

I didn't know about The Favourite, (a film which should certainly be a favourite of Dargo's). The subject seems like it was lifted from a subplot of the very first Masterpiece Theater: The First Churchills, in which Susan Hampshire played Sarah Churchill and Margaret Tyzack played Princess -- later Queen -- Anne.

I do love Olivia Colman and am looking forward to The Favourite. I enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos' crazy film The Lobster, apart from the ending.

Margaret Tyzack and Susan Hampshire in The First Churchills (1969)

1

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I didn't know about The Favourite, (a film which should certainly be a favourite of Dargo's). The subject seems like it was lifted from a subplot of the very first Masterpiece Theater: The First Churchills, in which Susan Hampshire played Sarah Churchill and Margaret Tyzack played Princess -- later Queen -- Anne.

I do love Olivia Colman and am looking forward to The Favourite. I enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos' crazy film The Lobster, apart from the ending.

Hampshire and Tyzack also were cast members of the late 1960s drama "The Forsyte Saga" -- the first British series that captivated American viewers of public television. Its popularity was a factor in the creation of Masterpiece Theater on PBS.

Hampshire won her second of three Primetime Emmys for her portrayal of the Duchess of Marlborough in "The First Churchills." She previously won for her performances as Fleur in "The Forsyte Saga." She later won for her take on Becky Sharp in a production of "Vanity Fair."

Interestingly, Hampshire is now a real-life lady. Since 1981, she has been married to the onetime theater producer Sir Eddie Kulukundis. Sadly, he suffers from dementia and Hampshire served as a full-time caregiver for 10 years. She recently resumed her acting career with a role in a stage production of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband."

On May 9, 2018 -- days before her 81st birthday -- she was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by The Princess Royal (a.k.a. Princess Anne) at a Buckingham Palace ceremony. Hampshire was presented the honor for services to drama and charity.

Monday, December 17 -- Oscars shortlists announced for nine categories (Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Live-Action Short, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Best Original Song).